From Government Executive:
... Rich Couture, president of AFGE Council 215 and the union’s chief negotiator with Social Security management, said a poor “self-taught” training model employed by the agency is leaving new hires unprepared for their duties and already looking for work elsewhere. Council 215 represents Office of Hearing Operations staffers.
“We have folks leaving the agency, because the training stinks,” Couture said. “I’d use another word, but we’re in polite company, but the training is terrible. The mentoring, based on an agency focus group report we just got last week, it looked like it was written by us, saying all the same things [we’ve been saying]. There’s not enough time; there’s not enough accommodation to make sure that it actually works. So instead, our folks are telling us, and they’re telling management when they leave, ‘I feel unsupported, I feel unprepared and I feel set up to fail.’ ” ...
17 comments:
When I came to the agency back in the mid aughts, new hires were given 6 months of in-person classroom training, followed by assignment of a real, in-person mentor and 100% review until they were sufficiently proficient to work independently. The agency invested real resources into training folks.
Now, they sit people in front of a computer and tell them to watch videos (time permitting) while on the job and are given a "virtual mentor" they can IM with questions.
You tell me the result. There is an entire generation of Operations employees who are undertrained and who barely understand Title 2 and Title 16 law. It's insane, and it demonstrates how unprepared SSA's management is to lead the organization.
I was a professional educator before joining SSA, and in the short time I have worked here I have taken the TSC class, served as a mentor for a TSC class, and completed both T2 and T16 training. The quality of the training materials is shocking, and there are precious few signs within them that the people that created them know anything about education. Its as if some consultant convinced a clueless member of upper management that gamification was a panacea, but neither of them would understand a learning loop even if it was plastered on their forehead.
Ssa management doesn’t care
The first comment is spot on. The agency has decided training new staff is not important compared to lobby wait times and meeting arbitrary processing goals. No one cares if a case is completed correctly, they just care that it is "done" and off a list. When I started with the agency 20 years ago, I had a dedicated mentor who was relieved of his workload to focus on helping me learn the job and reviewing my work. Fast forward to today, and trainers are expected to "mentor" three new people AND review 100% of their work, with no time set aside and zero reduction in their own workloads. There is a whole generation of SSA workers now who are essentially helpless, and all they know how to do is push buttons without understanding the ramifications.
They are throwing new hires to the wolves, which is why the one year attrition rate for new employees is something absurd like 30%. People KNOW they are basically cannon fodder.
All the comments here are spot on. The training is absolutely abhorrent, and that's an understatement. We have a "class" of trainees in our office that are coming up on 2 years and they are NOT ready to be on their own. They can barely answer calls on the phone line, their interviews take WAYY too long, their workload lists are WAY WAY behind and they are drowning in constant incoming work. A few take constant "mental health" days to escape the field office hellhole they are trapped in. I've over heard them "joking" asking each other if they've had a "cry day" yet. Management will continue do nothing and act like this is normal for employees. They will just continue to crack the whip harder and not care if people break and leave. I would honestly be surprised if our 'class" of trainees makes it another year.
The training is terrible in the PC as well. They put them in class, want to rush through all the subjects to keep the class on schedule no matter what. The instructors used to be given ample time to prepare to teach, it used to be 2 hours for every hour of instruction, then it went to 1 for 1, now apparently they made it 1 hour of preparation for every 2 hours of instruction. They expect you to make slideshows and all for these classes. Then you'll get an email while teaching about your own work not moving. It is insane. But it seems no one cares and just as long as they come out of class and can move the work, they are good and will be a manager one day if they move enough of the work, even though it is all wrong.
Is he talking about training for operations employees (aka T2, T16 and CSR) new hires, or for OHO hires? Because when I was first hired we had classroom training face to face and also some IVT for “core.” When I did crossover, it was on IVT which was actually somewhat fun. But now new hires in the field at least are basically on their own to go through online classes and basically click a bunch of questions to prove they have learned something, but then it’s on to the mentors to actually teach them. The training staff can answer IMs but an IM can’t fill in all the gaps the online stuff leaves out. And there is no time for on the job training or actual shadowing anymore because management won’t give us time. This is my experience in the field anyway. Is that what the article is talking about?
I agree with the first commenter. I came in during the mid 2000's. I had classroom instructions, training materials, on the job training with a mentor etc. But my training also had paper exams on what was taught and we had to pass it before we're allowed to advance to the next section of the training. We also had fake records that we get to practice on with out the fear of messing up.
SSA execs took all that away. In my region they even eliminated the training center that coordinates all the trainings for every type of employees.
Now new hires just sit behind a computer and click buttons to advance through crappy cartoons before asking their mentors actually teach their jobs.
When the agency transitioned to IVT training for front line field employees skeptics said it would never work. Fortunately it did and the outcomes verified the cost. In the last 5 years the agency transitioned away from live instruction with mentors lurking to what I call cartoon teaching with little or no interaction with trainers, leaving everything to chance and poor mentor support. This is field operations referenced. COVID hit and the bad became worse. PSC training requiring long periods of training and mentoring, following the onset of COVID went down the rabbit hole. BAs that took 2 years to become competent with intense face to face mentoring and in service training are left to dangle. I don't have a good feeling about how the future pans out for PSC or field employees. The Union folks concerned about the least common denominator say we can't hire anyone without offering 100% telework. We need to get back to basics. The public is not being served and I speak from experience. Union... get folks back to offices, train with live trainers IVT or face to face, get rid of cartoon training and add live interaction. Stop the idea that employees can work 100 percent from home and not have poor training and provide good public service.
Until the last 5-7 years, it was very uncommon for someone to leave my large SSA office unless it was for retirement, spouse transferred in military, promotion, etc. I can't recall one person quitting because the job was terrible. Lately there have been more that quit or are fired in the first year than stay on the job. During the pandemic there were 3 new SRs hired. When their first day of work came about, none showed up. Another new hire quit after just a week. A few of the more incompetent ones were fired.
Well said anonymous 10.:08. We also find that a lot of trainees are stuck in training longer than the days of live IVT. The current model is a joke. Sure, it's nice and flexible (self-paced), but that's part of the problem. Getting trainees in and trained with having to keep up with an IVT broadcast schedule was more of a sure thing.
While we're on the training topic, Frontline is generally lame and unprofessional. Due to the lack of onsite studio production, we are stuck with either fixed screens with somebody talking, or forced to view videos of generic non SSA looking scenarios. The videos are distracting at best. Finally, the sound quality is a joke as well. Because the different people reading the topics are teleworking and sound is not studio controlled, we constantly have to adjust volume while listening (one presenter is loud, the next really quiet). But hey, we supported more telework... It only took the cost of a professional product to pull it off!
I have found that the online training is a disaster. IVT was way better. Some of the instructors are still very nice and easy for my trainees to reach. But not all of them are. Some seem like we are bothering them when we ask them to clarify something from the cartoons or whatever they are. This way of training isnt workkng. Ivt was so much better and it was actually engaging when I went through T16 back in 2018. As a mentor now, I can’t even keep up with everything I am supposed to do as part of my workload and fill in the dozens of gaps the training leaves for my new hires. Am I the only one?
Our field office results from the computer training classes that replaced IVT:
14 CSRs hired in the four years since.
5 are gone (transferred or quit).
The other 9 were assigned to senior CSR mentors. Those CSRs were senior CSRs because they were garbage employees who couldn't get promoted to CS.
Of those 9, 2 are rockstars, 2 are so-so, and 5 cause continuous problems for the office by giving claimants incorrect information, handling workloads wrong, and not following policy.
Of those 5, I think 2 were just crappy hires, but the other 3 could have been saved with decent training or a decent mentor. But that window has passed now; you're not going to un-break their bad habits. They're either going to leave the agency or continue being boat anchors on the efficiency of our office.
Locked in a small room 8 hours a day doing IVT, while I did learn what I needed to know to not be a total drain on the office, I also learned the agency wasnt the place I wanted to work. I was enticed by the pay, but that only lasted a while, in 5 years I was gone, and I am very glad I left. There is only one of six still at the agency.
I think inflation is hurting the workforce too. SSA just can’t pay employees what other agencies and employers can. Despite the specialized and sophisticated rules in many areas. I hate seeing so many great workers with little upward mobility become poorer over time too.
It’s not just you. I am mentoring two people, full claim schedule every day, all the Internet disability claims recon’s and appeals plus all my other PE work…
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